About The Bash

About The Bash

On Friday February 9th the David Amram Quartet will headline the annual Bash featuring music, poetry and reminiscences celebrating the life of Neal Cassady, starting at 8:00pm, upstairs at the Mercury Café located at 2199 California Street.

The “Bash” is held annually in cooperation with the Cassady Estate to celebrate the life of Denver’s self-described “unnatural son,” Neal Cassady. Cassady’s influence on literary and pop culture is well documented. He was the archetype Beat writer as well as the protagonist of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” muse for Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, and driver of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters’ bus, “Further.” Throughout his life Neal exuded a style and distinct Denver “cool” which secured his stature as a true American original.

Sal Paradise says:

"He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him...Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me."